For those that show or compete, how did you get started?

The first example of *my* breed I saw at a show-a top winning import dog.......over 40 years ago. Finally found a pet-quality pup & knew I was hooked. I breed,train,groom,handle,titled in conformation & performance *&* field.....judge internationally,hunt/work them,....curse the day I went to Battle Creek.......sigh I've had a & have a couple of Borders(terriers-NOT BC!!!) but that's it.Why mess w/perfection-Norwich.

I actually started with a mixbreed dog. She was my first dog ever, a beagle mix. She was a big puller and was difficult to walk, so I found a local obedience training class and enrolled. Well, she caught on really quickly and at the end of 8 weeks, passed the test that the club held on the last night of training. It determined on whether you had to repeat the class or were able to move up. The instructors kept telling me what a wonderful working dog I had and encouraged me to move up to the next class, which was a Sub-Novice obedience class, which I did. We did very well in that class also and the instructors encouraged me to go to some obedience matches and told me about the American Mix Breed Obedience Registry, United Kennel Club and Australian Shepherd Club of America and how we could compete and earn obedience titles. So I found a local obedience match and she did very well, from there, we entered our first United Kennel Club obedience trial, our first leg, our first trial, she earned a 194. Since at that time, there was few only a few UKC and ASCA shows, so earning obedience titles on her took some time, since we only had maybe 2 shows a year, and had to travel 3 or 4 hours to these shows. I retired her from obedience with 1 leg in UKC Utility. Her titles are: UACH, UCDX, AMBOR/ASCA CDX JV-O RV-N, A-NG-V, MB-CD, EAC-V, EJC-V, S-NG-V, O-TNO, R1-MCL, ATTS, CGC My current breed is Standard Wirehair Dachshunds. My male has his: UCH UCDX AKC CH CD OA, NAJ RA, BHP-1, EAC OJC TNE WVO OCC PD1 PG2 PS1 PR2 (he needs 1 leg to finish his AKC CDX) My female is 9 months old and competition training for both agility and obedience. I just sort of fell into dachshunds, they just happened to come my way. They came to me for a reason. My agility instructor always says compete with the dog (breed/mix) that you own and love

Ack!...pull up a chair and make a cup of tea. I got started when I was walking home from the bus stop one day soon after moving into a new rural neighborhood, and heard a group of dogs howling from behind the privacy fence as I passed by. 10 years old, had to knock on the door and ask what they had back there (wolves, perhaps??)...nope, racing Siberian Huskies. A sled dog kennel (the wife also had a couple of dogs from show lines, it turned out). I had been involved in show jumping up to that point (in my first flat class when I was 5 years old), but bailed on that when I found out I could be running sled dogs. Did some endurance riding, and then lost time for the horses entirely. Pretty soon I was apprenticing at the kennel...cleaning poop, harnessing dogs, running puppy teams, bringing a puppy home...convincing mom/dad we needed more dogs, and a sled, etc. Eventually we all had our own teams and raced sprint/mid-distance all over the Rocky Mountains. I got into obedience and conformation by taking my first AKC registered Siberian puppy (bought from the back of a pickup truck at a sled dog race as an addition to my forming team) to Puppy Kindergarten at our local dog training club. We kept taking more classes, and were hooked. He wasn't show quality, but I got into Juniors with him and put a CD on him, made some friends among breeders, and got my first show quality dogs a bit later. Why? Just one of those people that wanted to do stuff with animals. There have always been animals in my life. My mother lived in Alaska for a time - in fact, I was made there! - so maybe the desire to run dogs was inborn. I haven't changed breeds, although I "collect" Standard Longhaired Dachshunds - don't breed them, just show them, finish them, and let them hog the bed.

My parents used to breed 2 very different dogs. Dad, English Pointers, mom, Rottweilers. I love hunting but needless to say I preferred the Rotties much more and they were my original breed. I started helper work when I was 11 or 12 and started training my personal dog at the same time (a Rottie named Thor). Fast forward a bit, working in Schutzhund and protection work I became interested in the "premier" working breed, the German Shepherd Dog. I was extremely lucky in the fact that the person I learned real world tracking (tracking through drive) from also bred working line GSDS from dutch/belgian lines and I was pretty much given a female pup and started her for S&R. Fast forward a few titles, a few club level Sch. quality dogs and I was out to buy a male pup to be my next HOT schutzhund dog...I happened across a Slovak breeder in bum **** egypt Virginia who barely spoke English and instead of leaving with a pup I left with an 18 month old named Sam who is my foundation stud. Sometimes in this business you just get lucky!!! Itor was trained by an older gentleman who passed away and was sold a few times over due to extreme handler aggression...until he landed into the hands of somebody who recognized what he was. A dog for breeding, not for sport. I imported him, again, sometimes you get lucky! Itor goes well with my Sam daughters and I'm working on a stud for my Itor daughters. Btw I left out all of my failures purposely to save face! Lol! Like the time one of my dogs went after the judge for accidentally poking 'em in the eye during the BH and was disqualified, lol. Or some of the breedings and litters I've bungled! But Sch got old for me, too much politics, and too few clubs and decent judges/trainers/helpers in this country. That's why I drifted towards harder dogs with more fight drive, dogs that wouldn't do well in sport but make excellent Police Service Dogs and personal protection dogs.

LOL, takes me back 25 yrs to reply. I wanted a Weimaraner. The only reputable breeder in my area with a litter, wanted me to take a show puppy & agree to show. I had to sign a contract. We got started handling classes, but about that time, a mentor (who had labs) introduced me to a lady teaching tracking, so we did that, too. I got into obedience, since I felt I needed basic control over a VERY energetic puppy. We ended up splitting each dog between my husband & myself, since we each seemed better at certain activities. He'd do the show ring since he had a longer, smoother stride, I did obed. since I wasn't dyslexic, but he was. I learned to lay tracks & he handled the dog on lead, since she would have pulled my face into the gravel - being such a fast, powerful tracker. I did retrieving with her, since that was an extension of obedience, he did the pointing bird-dog work since that required fast walking to sort of keep up with the dog, for when they go on point. We loved tha

Well this will take a while. Hmm well about 10 years ago we lost my dalmatian who was just a pet but we still loved him cause we knew nothing of showing at the time. When he died, we started looking for another dog, my mom did not want another big breed, so we looked into mini schnauzers, went to a show that had them and talked to breeders. In the process, my dad had remembered about this weimaraner that lived in his uncle's neighborhood and everyday would stop traffic by laying in the street, (he was a pretty big weim). So he discussed it with my mom, and we started looking at breeders, we found one that had a litter at the time and we went to look at them, well even though my mom did not want another big dog, she fell in love with the pups at first sight, those velvet ears and blue eyes could melt anyones heart. Well that breeder would not sell to us if we did not show him, since he was the *pick* of the litter, we did not know at the time and he turned out to be a dud. We agreed to it and took him home, we found a handler for him through a lady. He did not like showing but thats getting off topic. We went to see him at a show one day, and I absolutely fell in love with it, it was the best thing I had ever seen. Since he turned out to be a dud, 3 years later my parents started looking for a pup for me to show, behind my back of course lol. Thats how we got maxxi from a great breeder. I of course was just starting and maxxi was too much to handle for me so the breeder showed her to her championship. In the meantime I showed maxxi's mom in juniors and did quite well. I got my 3 firsts in novice within two shows. I put a CD on maxxi within 3-4 shows. She does not like the dumbell so can't go any further. She does have 1 leg towards her RN Unfortunately for me, no one really took an interest in helping me except for the breeder but even she was to busy with work to help train. I was really going to give it up cause I was so frustrated. That is until I met my mentor. My mom saw how much fun I was having showing and she wanted to get into showing, of course the weims were too strong for her. She needed a dog that she could walk with. She had, had boston terriers growing up and really liked them, but she did not like the temperament of some of them. We searched around and came across french bulldogs and my mom fell in love. Started researching breeders, and calling them up. Well we hit a brick wall, no breeder would sell us a pied or any for that matter. We were going to give up and the found this one breeder who would sell us one and was near us. So we ended up getting her, being none the wiser. Unfortunately she ended up having two bad knees so we spayed her. The breeder was furious and still does not talk to us till this day. One good thing came out of meeting this breeder, we met another lady that had a frenchy and boxers and bulldogs, who was starting training classes at her shop. That is where I met my mentor and friend. She would break me down every class, but Im glad she did, she made me a better handler for it. She is very blunt she will not sugar coat things, if you are doing something wrong she will let you know. We got our first bulldog from her. She would give my mom some dogs to work with in class every night. And one night my mom asked to be put on the waiting list for a pup. At the time she had two litters, one older litter that she only had one or two pups left (one of them being susie) and a younger litter, well because of a dispute between my mentor and another lady that younger litter could not be registered. One night my mentor said she had a surprise for us and sent me in the back to get this pup (susie), she said you can have her only with the condition we would give her a pup back from one of her litters, which we have. We had a litter of weim pups at the time. Which is where I got my kira, and where I really started competing. As of now Kira is minor pointed for show, she has her RN (which she picked up at nationals), one leg towards her CD (which she got over the past weekend), and one leg towards her JH (she keeps coming into heat when trials are on) Kira has become a joy to show, I hope to finish her soon and breed her. Two of the best moments showing her were when she took breed over two top ten specials at the age of 10 months. And when she won a class of 34+ two days in a row at a southern specialty, took reserve the second day. If it wasn't for my mentor none of this would be possible. I recently got to go to England to show dogs. Did quite well with them. Took second in the puppy group at one show with a mini bull almost beating one of their very few pro handlers. I handled/helped for three top kennels in England. I even have an invitation that I am taking to go back and show at Crufts. Oh yeah my bulldog pups, almost forgot. Well obviously we had two litters of gorgeous bulldog pups. Who have done quite well, the one (eureka) took breed at her first show. Others are waiting to mature. Once she and the others are finished the young ones will come out,and I will be showing them along with my mentor. Edit- NOTE: since i have had classes with my mentor everyone has now been helping me, and in some cases fighting over me. I have shown at least one breed in every group except for toys Edit- The judge who gave kira the breed win was Mr. Everett Dean, who has also given my eureka points.

Ido not show. nore do any events. as my rough collie is a puppy mill rescue. BUT we do train for agility. who knows if we will ever do any trials. but I want to see pictures. I ADORE collies (obviously lol)